Montgomery Clift in his last role plays an American scientist visiting in Leipzig who is pressed into service by the CIA. Under threat of losing his research funding, he reluctantly embarks on a mission to assist in the defection of a Russian scientist. But all that remains of this genius is a piece of microfilm, which is of course sought after with equal, if more evil, fervor by East German agents. Producer-director Raoul Levy successfully created the anti-glamorous, anti-Bond atmosphere which his comments on the film indicate he sought: “The over-glamorized horrors of war is an old subject,” he states (in Films and Filming (1967)). “The theme of this generation is the subtle terror of the Cold War....” The Defector is based on the idea that “spying is obsolete.... In an age when infrared satellites can photograph the inside of a Russian factory,” Levy comments, “what could be more absurd than training a man (as a scientist) and then sending him into an enemy country at the risk of his life?” What, indeed. A cold-spy film, the perfect vehicle for Clift, anti-spy and absurd hero.